Are Scalpers just a "Part of Society" now that'll never go away?

[PadPhilosopher]

I think the manufacturers care a lot about scalping, which is why they're talking about how to fix it. Not sure what the plan is though. Some number of gamers will pay any price, but overall the rate of adoption of a new system is definitely tied to price, and scalping slows that down. Consoles tend to be loss leaders too, or close to it. Sony wants to sell you a PS5, but not because selling a PS5 is immediately profitable. The money is made in the games. If a customer overpays for the console, they have less money left over to buy games, and of course the people who turn their noses up at the inflated prices and don't buy the system at all don't end up buying any games.

Well said, and clearly you have thought about this more than I have.

 

[MrBingston]

I think a lot of retailers did have a "one per" rule, although the dedicated scalpers can just run around to multiple stores, or order from multiple sites. It's difficult to stop that kind thing without laws, penalties, or something like a customer registry (which would be difficult to implement and would probably freak out a bunch of people).

Even when places would technically Limit online sales to "1 per person" it never actually worked out like that. As long as it's been kept online, it was a Scalpers Paradise, wherein many were using Bot programs to just automatically buy inventory for them.

A lot of "Drops" were so full of bot activity that any Real buyers would get kicked off the system, leaving Bots to snatch up inventory in the 2-3 minutes the drops typically lasted.

This made it literally impossible for the longest time to buy a console as long as they (the retailers) kept sticking to "Online sales only".

The retailers definitely Failed to do what they should have done to combat Scalpers, but most retailers likely didn't care and just wanted the stock gone, so it wasn't really a "Problem" for them.

It did indeed suck for Sony and MS though as that definitely must have cost them a lot of money.

Not sure MS did anything to combat Scalping at all.

All I've seen Sony do, at least inside Japan; was to put a Seal on the box that would be Opened when sold to the buyer.

In practice, this marks Consoles that may be destined for Resale, but if the Buyers don't care about a broken Seal and still buy the console at an exorbitant Markup, it does nothing to dissuade Scalping at all.

 

[Anemone]

It's not dishonest unless someone is not getting what they were promised at the price they agreed to pay. It is intellectually dishonest to call the practice in question dishonest because you dislike it.

They are providing a disservice by deliberately interfering with the supply chain but charging a premium for doing so as a service.

It is fundamentally dishonest as a practice to sell a solution to a problem which one has created for this purpose.

They are essentially asking to be paid to clean up their own mess, which is anything but honest.

 

[MrBingston]

They are providing a disservice by deliberately interfering with the supply chain but charging a premium for doing so as a service.

It is fundamentally dishonest as a practice to sell a solution to a problem which one has created for this purpose.

They are essentially asking to be paid to clean up their own mess, which is anything but honest.

Yup, they literally highjack a lot of the available stock (usually) by cheating with programs that will basically do the work for them so they can sit on their Lazy Butts, hoard Dozens/Hundreds of Consoles, and refuse to sell them without their so called "Modest" (from 40-100% + above Retail) Markup to do so.

They took what would have been a Mild problem (extra people being into a Hobby that never cared before, thus a Higher than prepared for Demand) and exacerbated it and kept abusing the Lax systems in place to keep doing so for about 2+ years.

It's literally some Jerk taking available stock they weren't gonna buy for any other reason, than to Amplify scarcity/perceived scarcity, and hope people will be stupid enough to pay hand over fist for them to do so.

 

[denimchicken]

I don't have an answer for retail scalping. I do like how valve did reservations for the steam deck when it first went on sale. (COVID shortages limited inventory)

You would make a 5 dollar down payment to make your reservation.

You also needed to have a single steam game in you library to make the reservation.

You could only make one reservation per customer

They would then ship reservations in the order they were placed.

If you wanted to scalp the steam deck you would need to make an account for each one, make the reservation down payment, buy a game on steam for each account (I don't know if it needed to be a payed game). All of that made it very impractical to scalp. There were people who did it anyway. However if you had some patient's, you had your place in line, and nobody could take it from you. You needed to only finish the rest of the payment when your turn came to finish the purchase.